NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio may take down Christopher Columbus statue

The rally turned deadly when a vehicle plowed into a group of demonstrators, killing 34-year-old Heather Heyer, who was protesting white supremacists. Columbus did perpetrate genocide against Native American groups like the Taino, who inhabited the island of Hispaniola before he landed there in 1492.

"The mayor and the speaker are on a collision course with myself and other Italian-American New Yorkers if they think they are they are going to tear down this iconic monument donated to the city by our ancestors", Capano said.

The current caricature of Columbus now being peddled by some politicians and activists comes from the likes of Ward Churchill, the disgraced professor infamous for calling NY victims of 9/11 "little Eichmanns". He's flawed, we're all flawed - hey, I'm flawed. 'Stop the political correctness.

The National Christopher Columbus Association's Patrick Korten believes it is not only a foolish mission, but the city is using "KKK-like tactics" to remove the statue.

It's not just Columbus who is under siege.

Italian American lawmakers and civic leaders rallied Thursday in support of the Christopher Columbus statue that towers over Columbus Circle as New York City officials continue to weigh the removal of controversial statues and monuments. "He was a slave trader", Victoria Valentine told News 8. The statue of Lee that initially sparked the protests in Charlottesville has yet to be removed, the New York Times reports.

As a prominent NY historical figure, removing traces of Stuyvesant could prove a daunting task.

The statue of the man himself sits in Stuyvesant Town, a large cluster of private residential buildings that some would consider a NY neighborhood unto itself.

Darshan-Leitner suggests a name swap, replacing the name of Stuyvesant with that of Asher Levy, one of the first Jewish settlers in New Amsterdam. On Twitter and at a combative news conference two weeks ago, Trump said "who's next" among the nation's historical figures to be nixed from public monuments because they were deemed offensive.

'This was about customs in the 17th century, ' said the spokesman, arguing that Stuyvesant opposed any religion outside of his own church to maintain social cohesion and due to ignorant ideas about disease, ' the spokesman told the Post.

Councilman Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican who organized the rally and a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, said talk of removing the statue "validated what President Trump said".